German parliament OKs higher minimum wage pledged by Scholz

BERLIN (AP) — The German parliament has approved raising the country’s minimum wage to 12 euros ($12.84) per hour, fulfilling a key campaign pledge by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The increase will take effect in October, when the minimum wage will rise from 10.45 euros — a hike of nearly 15%. The government says some 6.2 million people in Germany currently work for less than 12 euros per hour. Germany was a relative late-comer to a national minimum wage, which it has had since 2015. It was introduced at the insistence of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, who at the time were junior partners in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.